Last week Kevin and I were outside doing some yard work. He was mowing and I was weeding our garden when I found something new! Now, I'm not a super experienced gardener, but this is my third year in this garden and I have a pretty good idea of what grows there. But this thing was something completely new, a type of fungus I've never seen before. I took some pictures and then resumed gardening. As soon as I got in the house I grabbed my phone* and looked up what this mystery fungus was.
It's mutinus elegans or more commonly known as the elegant stinkhorn, the dog stinkhorn or the devil's dipstick. Excuse my immaturity (not that I ever claimed to have a sense of humor any different than high school boy's) but I laughed until I cried when we found it was called the devil's dipstick. Even though this is a juvenile specimen it still seems quite phallic to me.
The egg shaped fruiting body has a skin that peeled off easily and inside it's covered in a gel like substance. This is what it looks like with the skin and gel peeled off. It kind of reminds me of an olive.
It was pretty hard (I couldn't pop it with my fingers). I had Kevin cut one open for me with his pocket knife so I could get a better look at what's inside. It was filled with a clear, odorless, water-like, substance.
So awesome! I love finding new mushrooms that I've never seen before. I'm going to be keeping my eyes on these babies and hope that one day I go out and find a mature specimen. If I do you'll surely be hearing about it. Stinkhorns are know for the fact you can usually smell them before you see them and as weird as it sounds - I'm really excited to smell them.
If you're curious you can see what they should like when they mature right here.
I hope to find many more new mushrooms the next few months. Remember a few months back when I found the earthstars? That was so exciting, fingers crossed I find some more this year!
xoxo
*I get asked quite frequently what I use as a mushroom reference, if I have any favorite books, etc but by far my favorite tool is an app for iphone called "Fungi". It's really easy to use and I can't recall a single time when I wasn't able to find what I was looking for. It's by far worth the $1.99 it costs.
The egg shaped fruiting body has a skin that peeled off easily and inside it's covered in a gel like substance. This is what it looks like with the skin and gel peeled off. It kind of reminds me of an olive.
If you're curious you can see what they should like when they mature right here.
I hope to find many more new mushrooms the next few months. Remember a few months back when I found the earthstars? That was so exciting, fingers crossed I find some more this year!
xoxo
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